Lucy Snape and the Final Battle (Book Seven)

The Tale of Lucy Snape

Chapter 19: The Tale of Lucy Snape

Lily Potter ran as quick as she could through the Forbidden forest. She'd been hiding out for the majority of the day and had been waiting intently for Snape to arrive. She'd sent the message to him this summer about Lucy's birth:

13th July 1980

The Half-Blood Princess

But Snape had never replied. She assumed he couldn't what with the old grouch Tobias still lurking around. But now that Snape was Potions master and had arrived at Hogwarts early she could finally get to him without the fear of Lucy being injured. Lucy began to wail in the dark forest and Lily shushed her, terrified that she'd attract unwanted attention from the evil that lurked within.

Lily stopped to catch her breath. "Shhh, please, darling. We'll get caught if you keep crying and then you'll never get to see your father."

But Lucy refused to give up so Lily carried on. She was near an opening now and to her surprise and luck, Snape was just beyond the clearing.

"Severus! Severus! I have her! Your baby girl! I need you to look after her — " Lily screamed but she was halted in her tracks by an unexpected event; her waters had broken.

She tried to go on and scream louder but Snape could not hear and was now heading back towards the castle, she would have no chance catching up with him. Lily swore to herself, her contractions were already beginning to bring baby Harry into the world. The scene changed to the train station, Lily boarded the already moving train back to London.

Seventeen year old Lucy stood on the platform and watched after her mother, taking her younger self away. Her cloak whipped out of the carriage as she was momentarily paralysed by the pain, then a piece of paper was carried by the wind all the way to the platform.

Lucy caught it midair just as Matt materialised beside her.

"Lucy?"

Lucy blinked and she was back in the present day Hogsmede station. She braced herself for the fear that the next page of the tale would not be there but sure enough it was, clenched in her fist and all screwed up but nonetheless there.

"Are you alright? Why'd you take off running like that?" Matt bent down and rested his hand on his knees as he caught his breath, running from the forbidden forest to Hogsmede station was no easy job.

"Fine," Lucy nodded weakly. All the encounters she'd nearly had before actually meeting her father had always been cruelly interrupted, Lucy had a feeling this was because it wasn't the right time for them to meet. Whereas meeting when Lucy was ten and just about to join Hogwarts set the wheels in motion for Zuc's rise to begin. It was almost as if her fate had been written out for her a million years ago...

Lucy glanced down at the page; it was a drawing of herself, Snape and Shona. The artwork was so detailed it was almost like a photograph, the only giveaway that it wasn't was the missing magical quality of it moving.

"Is someone the budding artist?" Matt asked, peering at the drawing as Lucy smoothed it out.

"No just a collector," Lucy flipped it over and began to read:

Fate has always suggested that there shall be another war. Not only from the medieval islands, which shrunk in power over the years aside from a few little blips on the radar, but from the wizarding world. The Wizarding world became far stronger than the medieval islands for the morale was not broken even in the darkest of times. Wizards know how to co-operate when faced with danger whereas those on the medieval islands are always fixed with indecision and can never quite decide on the right tactics to win a war. But they have got stronger since the birth of Lord Zuc. It was almost as if the day of his birth triggered an earthquake of hope across the islands; 'Vasil's descendant will rise to power' the newspapers claimed recently. Although there may be doubt, the odds are most certainly in the knightings favour this time. An army has been built and a face of hope has been created. They have lived in the dark for so long and now they are hungry for power that they have been starved of by the wizards.